Cici and Hyatt Brown Museum of Art
Open September 21, 2024 through March 2, 2025
Presented by Cici and Hyatt Brown

The Museum of Arts & Sciences invites you on an extraordinary journey through the original Birds of Florida as captured in the meticulously painted studies of John James Audubon (1785-1851), one of the most celebrated artists in American history. A masterpiece of printmaking, these exquisite, life-size illustrations are part of Audubon’s ground-breaking 435-count compendium The Birds of America, the culmination of the artist’s ambition to paint every bird species in North America. As part of this twelve-year venture, Audubon organized a special expedition to Florida (1831-1832) in order to document the birds, and their habitats, unique to the U.S. Territory.

Audubon’s Birds of Florida presents nearly eighty original prints, paintings, and related artifacts, primarily drawn from the Cici and Hyatt Brown Collection, which focus on a selection of birds the artist saw or wrote about from Florida in Ornithological Biography, as well as the majority of birds he painted while in Florida or shortly thereafter. Audubon’s Florida quest began in St. Augustine in November 1831, where he was based for three months. From there, his crew traveled along the east coast of Florida, following rivers, lakes, and marshes in canoe, schooner, and skiff, exploring the St. Johns and Halifax Rivers. Locally, he spent time at Bulow Plantation and Spring Garden Plantation, now called DeLeon Springs. Suffering through swarms of mosquitos and wading through alligator-infested wetlands, the artist recorded bird species new to him, including the natural surroundings, which would make their way into the backgrounds of his realistically rendered subjects. In late April of 1832, Audubon boarded the U.S. Cutter Marion and headed to the Florida Keys, where he was enraptured by the variety and beauty, as well as vast numbers of bird life. At the end of May, the artist returned to Charleston to complete the drawings for many of the acclaimed works on display in this exhibition.

Audubon’s Birds of Florida is presented with the generous support of Cici and Hyatt Brown, whose transformational gift of original Audubon prints makes the MOAS Collection one of the finest in the country. The exhibition is an experiential companion to the sumptuously illustrated catalog, Audubon’s Birds of Florida, written by guest curator Clay Henderson, environmental lawyer, historian, and President Emeritus of the Florida Audubon Society. Henderson’s deep scholarship of John James Audubon’s life and work, as well as his personal commitment to the study and preservation of Florida’s flora and fauna, lead us on a thoughtful expedition of our own. With a specific investigation into relevant conservation issues, this project brings an expanded interpretation of the complex legacy of J. J. Audubon, a brilliant, yet flawed, man of his time, who greatly advanced the world’s understanding of ornithological science and the interdependence of wildlife with the natural environment.

John James Audubon’s Florida Expedition took him through several areas that are now part of the Great Florida Birding and Wildlife Trail. The GFBWT consists of over 500 locations statewide, recognized as some of the best places in Florida to observe birds and wildlife. Managed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the GFBWT allows today’s birders to follow in Audubon's footsteps and encounter many of the iconic species he once painted and described.

Audubon's Birds of Florida Book by Clay Henderson

Audubon’s Birds of Florida captures the history and art of John James Audubon’s six-month expedition to the Florida Territory in 1831-32. Written by award-winning environmental advocate and author, Clay Henderson, the book chronicles Audubon’s paintings and descriptions of previously unknown birds of the Florida wilderness. The narrative retraces his journeys through swamps, encounters with Indians and pirates, and survival from violent storms. Henderson visited and searched for birds in all the places Audubon visited from the St. Johns River to Dry Tortugas. The beauty of this book is its high-resolution reproductions of all the thirty-nine birds Audubon painted from Florida together with fifty additional Florida birds from Birds of America. The vivid colors and lifelike images allow the birds to appear to fly off the pages. These iconic prints are an impressive component of the collections of Cici and Hyatt Brown Museum of Art of the Museum of Arts and Sciences.

Click Here to Purchase a Book Online

What Others Are Saying

Audubon’s Birds of Florida fills an important knowledge gap of the artist’s travels and observations in my home state. Clay Henderson adds his own detailed perspective to selected Audubon writings about birds the artist would have seen and heard in Florida. Lovers of birds and wildlife art are familiar with Audubon’s prints and the way his work helped change views of nature. This book reproduces the familiar plates but offers so much more. Henderson, whose previous books demonstrate his skill as a writer, updates and interprets our understanding of Audubon with thoughtful essays and the insights of an admired Florida naturalist and historian.    

Eric Draper, Former Florida Park Service Director 

If anyone thought that Clay Henderson’s “Forces of Nature” was a one-and-done capstone book, a history of conservation in Florida by one of its major players, they are in for a very pleasant surprise. Henderson has doubled down with his latest book Audubon’s Birds of Florida. It is a visual and historical homerun.  

Drawing on his skills as a lawyer and historian he has put in the work, but his Southern roots allow a narrative style that reminds us that stories are simply facts with a human face. The result is a visual and historical delight.

In his work, Henderson eschews hagiography and tells the story of John James Audubon with fairness to the man, his times, his strengths and weaknesses, and the geography of Florida as he found it. Audubon’s plates are presented in a visually striking way, with Florida-centric historical contexts that illuminate the images. Henderson’s love of his subject and Florida

Finally, Henderson includes an interview homage to Hyatt and Cici Brown, whose collection of Florida art is the finest in Florida and served as a springboard for his work.

To anyone with a love of Florida history, it is a second spotlight on the role of conservation in that history. The reader is left only to say to the author: “more, Clay, more…keep ‘em comin’…”

Rev. Cannon Dr. J.  Allison DeFoor,  President North Florida Land Trust

Audubon’s Birds of Florida is a wondrous book that features 91 beautiful prints of birds that artist John James Audubon drew during his 1831-32 travels in Florida. Author Clay Henderson recounts Audubon’s travels as well, lending new insight into Audubon’s vision and the marvelous avian life he found while journeying the length of the peninsula. This is a must for anyone interested in Florida history and birds—a delight for the mind and eyes.

Dr. Leslie Poole, Rollins College

I am so astounded by Clay Henderson’s latest book, Audubon’s Birds of Florida, published in collaboration with the Museum of Arts and Sciences and the Cici and Hyatt Brown Museum of Art in Daytona Beach! Clay’s description of John James Audubon’s adventures in Florida reads like a travel novel, full of action and adversities, depicting the people and places he visited and the trials and difficulties of his treks and voyages across primitive Florida. Additionally, the prints of Audubon’s birds are vibrant, with startling colors, true to the original plates produced by Havell. Each species plate is accompanied by the details of its production, where the birds were collected, who added plants or backgrounds. This brings home the process and care that went into each portrait.

Working in the field, without the benefit of modern technology, communication, or convenience of travel, Audubon’s skill and biological knowledge shine in each species depiction as he worked to bring the birds to us lifelike. Everyone will enjoy this book and appreciate it as a new look at the enormous artistic product accomplished by Audubon.

Ann Paul, President Tampa Audubon Society

 

 

Author, Clay Henderson with Cici and Hyatt Brown

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the relationship between John James Audubon and the National Audubon Society?
In the late nineteenth century concerns were raised that wildlife species were being lost due to over-hunting and killing of birds for feathers for ladies’ hats. George Bird Grinnell was an important leader in the beginning of the modern environmental movement. In his early years, he was a student of Lucy Audubon in the Audubon house in New York, and became inspired by the life’s work of John James Audubon. Grinnell called for the establishment of a national conservation organization to protect birds and habitats named in honor of Audubon. He established the first Audubon Society in 1886, followed by Massachusetts Audubon in 1896, Florida Audubon Society in 1900, and others who came together to establish the National Audubon Society in 1905.

Is the Audubon Society going to change its name?
In recent years many institutions have sought to reexamine their role in systemic racism. Recent scholarship shows that John James Audubon held enslaved persons during a nine year period while living in Kentucky, a slave state during the early nineteenth century. Audubon was not a good businessman and lost his business, and all his property was sold off, including enslaved persons, when he declared bankruptcy. He was even jailed briefly as a debtor. Afterward, Audubon reinvented himself as an artist and naturalist and became famous for his body of work. Several local Audubon chapters have voted to change their name in light of these revelations. After a yearlong review and survey of members, the National Audubon Society voted in 2023 to keep the name “Audubon” as it is synonymous with the historic conservation movement.

How long was Audubon in Florida?
John James Audubon’s expedition to Florida took place during a six month period from November 20, 1831-May 31, 1832. During this period, he visited St. Augustine, journeyed by boat up the St. Johns River, visited Hernandez Plantation and Bulow Plantation in Flagler County, boated the Halifax River to Ponce Inlet, visited Spring Garden Plantation at DeLeon Springs, then boarded a ship south to Indian Key, Key West, and Dry Tortugas. In 1837, he briefly visited Pensacola.

Where did Audubon visit locally?
On Christmas Day 1831, Audubon arrived at Bulow Plantation, now Bulow Creek State Park off what is now Old Dixie Highway north of Ormond Beach. On New Year’s Eve, they set off in a boat along the Halifax River to Mosquito Inlet, now Ponce de Leon Inlet, and looked at pelican rookeries like the one currently at Port Orange Causeway Park. On January 6, 1832, Audubon travelled on horseback from Bulow Plantation to Spring Garden Plantation, now
DeLeon Springs State Park, crossing over the branches of Haw Creek. Two days later he boarded took a boat through Spring Garden Lake, Lake Woodruff, and Dexter Lake toward the St. Johns River in what is now Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge.

Why did Audubon come to Florida?
Audubon knew there were birds in Florida, that he could find in no other place to complete his monumental project Birds of America. He was also aware there would be large numbers of migratory birds in Florida during the winter months.

Why is Audubon’s expedition to Florida significant?
Audubon added thirty-nine bird species to Birds of America from his Florida expedition. He also observed fifty species that he wrote about in his Ornithological Biography. Many of the birds Audubon drew or described were new to science.

How rare are the objects in the exhibition?
Each of the Audubon prints are original watercolors that are nearly 200 years old and part of the Birds of America series. The prints were made in Edinburgh and London between 1825-1838, as part of four volumes with less than 200 complete sets produced. Each print is hand colored, and thus an original watercolor painting. The MOAS Audubon exhibit contains ninety-one of these original prints.

Why is Audubon important?
John James Audubon was the most significant artist/naturalist in American history. His monumental work, Birds of America, documented 435 bird species in North America. His art is iconic and priceless. Original Audubon prints hang in the White House, Library of Congress, and Smithsonian American Art Museum. A recent sale of Birds of America sold for $11.5 million. Audubon’s Ornithological Biography, a 3500 page survey of American birds, was the most important ornithological work of his time. Audubon and Benjamin Franklin were the only Americans during the early nineteenth century to receive international recognition for their scientific achievements.

Why is Audubon so popular?
John James Audubon’s celebrity status brought him international fame, as he became an iconic symbol of the American wilderness. His art changed the way people saw birds as he drew them in lifelike action poses. Audubon lived long enough to see birds and wildlife decline and was among the first to sound the alarm for conservation. Today his very name is synonymous with conservation.

What is an “original Audubon? What is the difference between the Havell and Octavo folios? Are there other folios?
The original paintings of The Birds of America by John James Audubon were sold by his widow, Lucy, to the New York Historical Society, but they are not the only “originals.” The Havell prints were produced in London between 1827-1838, and were printed on double elephant folio paper, 39.5 inches tall by 28.5 inches wide, to depict the birds in
life-size. There were less than 200 sets produced of the four volume 435 print set of Birds of America. Each is an original because they were hand colored. Between 1839-1844, Audubon produced The Royal Octavo Edition of the Birds of America, which was smaller and more affordable sets of 500 plates. The Octavo folio was produced in Philadelphia by John T. Bowen on ten inch by six and one half inch pages using a camera lucida to duplicate the original prints in miniature. They were printed using an early lithograph process, and hand colored originals. Following Audubon’s death in 1851, his son John Woodhouse Audubon produced a duplicate set of the elephant folio of The Birds of America, using a new printing process known as chromolithography, which enhanced the colors in the process. Julius Bien produced the prints between 1858-1860 in New York. They are also considered an “original print.” All three versions continue to have value to collectors.

When you say “Birds of Florida” what does that exactly mean as it relates to Audubon’s work?
The Florida Ornithological Society officially lists 534 bird species which have been observed in Florida including 17 established exotic species. This includes resident birds found year round in Florida, and migratory birds including those which over-winter in Florida as well as those which pass through on their way to other wintering grounds in the Caribbean or South America. Audubon set out to draw all the birds in North America without really knowing how many that would be. He also didn’t have the benefit of a published bird guide like so many in print today. Audubon’s expedition to Florida introduced him to approximately fifty new species including several new to science at that time. The birds in the MOAS exhibition include most of the birds that he captured or studied in Florida between 1831-1832 including a few that he finished shortly after in Charleston. Many of these bird observations in Florida are noted in his Ornithological Biography that accompanied the prints.

How many Florida birds exist in an Audubon print that are not represented in the exhibition? What are they? Why aren’t they in the show?
Audubon set out to paint all the birds of North America. While he painted 435 species, that is far less than the total number of species in America or even Florida. Nevertheless, the fifty birds that Audubon described or painted in Florida represent more than ten percent of his overall total and include many of his most spectacular paintings. The exhibit contains most of the fifty birds Audubon described or painted in Florida and includes a total of ninety-one birds either resident or migratory to Florida. This makes it a unique and important collection. There are very few remaining complete sets of The Birds of America. The prints which have been collected are from original sets that were split up and prints were sold separately to collectors around the world. This collection represents the work of Hyatt and Cici Brown to collect Audubon prints over several decades as individual prints came on the market.

Why did the Brown’s start collecting Audubon prints? What is their philosophy about collecting them? What is their favorite and why?
Hyatt and Cici Brown amassed the largest collection of Florida art now on display at MOAS in the Cici and Hyatt Brown Museum of Art. They began collecting Audubon prints due to their strong interest in art which has an historic connection to Florida. The Florida Cormorant was their first print and they set out to collect resident Florida birds as well as more easily recognized migrants. Cici’s favorite is Louisiana Heron which probably has a Volusia County connection. Their collection philosophy was to find and acquire the best examples of Audubon prints. Since no two Audubon prints are alike they strive to find those with the most vivid color, not faded over time. They are very proud of their one-of-a-kind Florida collection of Audubon prints.

What can I do to help bird conservation efforts?
There are many things individual people can do to help bird conservation efforts. The first important thing is to start birding! Pick up a pair of binoculars, buy a bird guide, and get outside and become aware of the birds that are all around us. Join others in birdwatching groups. Put out a bird feeder in your backyard and keep track of birds that visit it. The MOAS exhibit will contain a map showing where Audubon traveled in Florida together with sites along the Great Florida Birding Trail where one can go birdwatching in the same place Audubon did nearly 200 years ago. One can also join one of the 45 local Florida chapters of the National Audubon Society, including three in Volusia County, and participate in their programs including the annual Christmas Bird Count, the largest and longest running citizen science project in the world, or the annual Backyard Bird Count. Volunteer at a local nature center, state park, or sanctuary and learn about managing bird habitat. Get involved in advocacy efforts to protect birds and their habitats.